One Laptop Per Child in South America talk at The World Bank [video]

While I was in the United States in early September I gave a talk about the current status quo of the OLPC projects in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru (which I had visited on my olpcnews road trip) at The World Bank. I was joined on the panel by Wayan Vota, publisher of OLPC News and EduTechDebate, and The World Bank's Sr. Education Economist Cristian Aedo. While I unfortunately ended up talking longer than planned we still had some time in the end to take audience questions which led to some very interesting discussions and insights.

Anyway, I have embedded a recording of the talk below. Please note that the session only starts at around 9:15min and that the slides I used are available for download here.

You can find the OLPC News posts I've written about my experiences in South America here and we'll be publishing plenty more information on both OLPC News and EduTechDebate over the coming weeks.

Upcoming talks in Lima and D.C.

One of the side-effects of my involvement with the One Laptop per Child project has been that it has given me a chance to regularly speak about and present the project. The audiences I’ve presented for in the past 3 years range from visitors of 26C3 and students at various Austrian universities to OLPC aficionados in Washington, D.C. back in December 2007.

Now the main focus of my current OLPC News South America road trip was to listen and talk with – rather than for – people involved in the South American OLPC / Sugar projects. However I’m happy that I’m also getting a chance to speak about my experiences a couple of time.

The miniJAM! artistico on my last day in Montevideo was a great start that also allowed me to practice presenting in Spanish (which I did for the first time since I finished school). I mainly talked about the activities of the OLPC / Sugar communities in Europe as well as contrasting my experiences in Uruguay with the ones I made volunteering with OLE Nepal in 2009.

Now last week the details for two upcoming talks were finalized:

Wednesday, August 25: 7:30PM – Escuelab, Lima: One Laptop per Child: Una perspectiva europea

Monday, August 30: 12:30PM – World Bank, Washington, D.C.: One Laptop Per Child in South America: Reports from on-the-ground

If you happen to live in these cities and/or know people there who might be interested in learning more about OLPC and Sugar Labs in general and my views of the status quo of the projects in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru in particular then please spread the word and stop by at the talks.